Overview

• Reconstruction took several months as a team pieced together thousands of fragile plaster fragments in what lead conservator Han Li called the "world’s hardest puzzle."
• Restored fresco segments once adorned roughly 20 interior walls of a first- to second-century villa in the affluent Southwark quarter of Roman Londinium.
• Decorations include painted musical instruments, birds, flowers and fruits as well as faux yellow marble and dark red porphyry finishes.
• Excavation at the same site also uncovered a rare Roman mausoleum and floor mosaics, underscoring the neighborhood’s elite status.
• A newly revealed fragment inscribed with the Latin word "Fecit" suggests an artist’s signature and researchers are seeking the missing piece to reveal the painter’s name.